NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the Andhra Pradesh government and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on two public suits complaining that normal activities in the state had come to a standstill due to the Telangana agitation.
An apex court bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice Sudhansu Jyoti Mukhopadhaya also issued notice to the registrar general of the state high court and the Andhra Pradesh Bar Council on the petitioner’s allegation that judicial activities have been adversely affected by the protests.
The court sought a report by the high court on the disruption of judicial work in the state in the wake of an agitation by a section of lawyers. The court issued notice on two of the three PILs filed by the petitioner, advocate P.V. Krishnaiah.
In a third public suit, Krishnaiah contended that the central government could not take recourse to Article 3 of the Constitution for carving out the state of Telangana as Article 371 D says that locals in Telangana region would get preference in jobs and education. The court declined to entertain this petition.
The petition had sought the court’s direction that the central government does not have the power, authority and jurisdiction to invoke Article for formation of new state or states by bifurcating Andhra Pradesh, formed Nov 1, 1956 by merging the Andhra state with part of the Hyderabad state i.e. Telangana region, based on the linguistic criteria
Seeking to restrain the employees of the Andhra Pradesh government for embarking on strikes and other agitations like “Rasta Roko, Road Roko and Rail Roko”, Krishnaiah said that they are on general strike for last one month, thereby paralysing the functioning of the government.
As a consequence of this agitation, not only the Telangana region but in other parts of the state, people including farmers are facing a lot of problems, he said, adding crops are dying in the absence of irrigation because of power cuts. The petition also said that there was no transportation in the Telangana region.
Krishnaiah also sought an inquiry into the circumstances and those who were responsible for not implementing the resolution passed by the full court of Andhra Pradesh High Court Sep 11, 2011 asking the lawyers not to participate in the boycott call.
The petitioner has pleaded for an inquiry to know at whose instance, police has not taken any action against the advocates who restrained their other colleagues from entering into the court premises and the court’s hall. He said that these lawyers raised slogans of “Jai Telangana” and staged a sit-in in front of judges’ chambers and played drums. (IANS)